It's summer of 1973. Freddie Taylor (Christian Cooke) comes from working class suburb of Cemetery Junction. He doesn't want to follow his father (Ricky Gervais) into the factories. He takes a job selling life insurance from district manager Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes) and Mike Ramsay (Matthew Goode). He has a cool friend Bruce Pearson (Tom Hughes) and an idiot friend Snork (Jack Doolan). Childhood acquaintance and his boss's daughter Julie Kendrick (Felicity Jones) returns to town and is now engaged to Mike Ramsay. Mrs Kendrick (Emily Watson) is the long suffering wife.
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have mashed together a lot of coming-of-age stories for the setup of this movie. It's got great actors although the three male leads are unknown to me. That is its main drawback for the first half. It takes a little while for me to get involved with these friends. Then the movie take some interesting turns in the characters' journeys. It takes some digs at the stale British life. It's a bit uneven between broad comedy and tough social commentary. But I do like the effort it makes.
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have mashed together a lot of coming-of-age stories for the setup of this movie. It's got great actors although the three male leads are unknown to me. That is its main drawback for the first half. It takes a little while for me to get involved with these friends. Then the movie take some interesting turns in the characters' journeys. It takes some digs at the stale British life. It's a bit uneven between broad comedy and tough social commentary. But I do like the effort it makes.